A substantial market has developed in recent years for purchasing items at home through shopping networks broadcast to a consumer via a television, for example QVC and the Home Shopping Network. Such shopping networks are not interactive. In other words, where a consumer desires to purchase a product offered via the network, the consumer must use the telephone to order the product. In addition, the consumer is limited to a pictorial representation of the goods.
One problem with the above system for ordering goods is that the consumer does not have confidence in the merchandise which is being purchased. More particularly, for fashion merchandise, the consumer must order from available sizes of goods offered and cannot be insured that the goods will fit properly. Also, with respect to footwear, due to variations in shoe sizes offered by various manufacturers and a consumer's changing foot size, a consumer can never be certain that the ordered footwear will fit properly.
In addition, in self service shoe stores, there is a need for a measuring device to allow a consumer to measure his or her foot size quickly and accurately and without great expense to the store. Presently, self service shoe stores are limited to manual Brannock or Ritz stick type measuring devices. However, a problem with these devices is that many consumers do not know how to use them. In addition, these devices do not provide measurements which allow for footwear to be custom fit, instead the consumer is limited to a standard length and width shoe size.
Accordingly, Thies et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,206,804) disclosed a system for footwear visual image cataloging and selection. The system includes a three-dimensional electronic scanner unit which creates an electronic image of a foot which is placed on the scanner, and a central computer which is coupled to the scanner and which receives the image data. The central computer also receives customer identification data and customer preference data input by the customer using an input device. In addition, the system includes a storage device which is coupled to the central computer for storing the image data and footwear related data for retrieval by a customer using the image and cataloging system. Further, the system includes a display device which displays the image data related to the measured foot, as well as footwear related data stored in the storage device.
A problem with the above disclosed image and cataloging system is the large size of the foot scanner unit which creates the images of the measured foot. Such a device must be large enough to receive a foot on a flat surface so that a three-dimensional image can be formed. Therefore, the device must be large enough to accommodate the largest foot sizes. In addition the device must have a light source which is directed at the foot being scanned, an optical scan head coupled to the light source and a controller for adjusting the light intensity of the scan head. Therefore, the scanning apparatus of the prior art is neither portable nor inexpensive.
Another problem with the scanning unit disclosed by Thies et al. is the length of time and amount of data to scan a consumer's foot and to process the data for ultimate display on the display unit. For example during a typical scanning operation, a foot to be scanned is placed upon one side of the reference surface and the optical scan head disposed along an opposite side of the reference surface is moved along a track to scan the foot. However, such a scanner requires resolution on the order of 520.times.220 pixels worth of data, each covering an area of 5 square millimeters. In addition, the central computer must compute a level heeled foot length, foot width, arch-line, and foot curvature from the data received from the foot image scanner before displaying an image to the user. Thus, from a user's point of view, the length of time it actually takes to scan the foot and process the data can be too long. In addition, the length of time may result in a user moving during the scanning process which may result in inaccuracies in the foot measurement.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to solving the problems of prior art apparatus and, more particularly, reducing the length of time and amount of data required to create an image of a foot according the prior art method and apparatus.
In addition, the present invention is directed to solving the problems of the cost and size associated with the prior art apparatus for creating such an image.
In addition, the present invention is directed to solving the problem of a lack of measuring devices in the self service shoe industry.
Further, the present invention is directed to solving the confidence problems associated with ordering footwear through the televised home shopping industry.